Thursday, August 03, 2006

Forget Plan B - Just Stop Cleaning Your House

I think a messy apartment is the best, cheapest form of birth control around.

Right now the cronies in Washington D-C are considering whether to allow Plan B be sold over the counter. This is a last ditch oops I crapped my pants! option for people who copulate sans protection when all the conditions are right for making babies.

These people would have never gotten themselves into this sticky situation if they just stopped picking up the G strings off the floor.

This morning my apartment looks like a cross between a Victoria's Secret and a dorm room in a frat house. Two places I have spent some time in, on most occasions walking out empty handed thanks, just inspecting the merchandise. The truth is VS doesn't always have much to offer for the 38DD set. Fraternity houses, on the other hand, welcome 38DD people with open arms and hands and mouths. I however, wasn't really so willing to participate.

But I digress.

I have clean underwear thrown everywhere after I tossed my laundry basket in the living room. There's an empty pizza box from Dewey's on the floor, along with some dirty dishes, empty Netflix envelopes, shoes! shoes! everywhere! and junk mail up the wazoo.

And this is pretty much how the entire apartment looks.

I go through phases where cleaning my apartment is concerned. Sometimes I get all anal about the grout between my bathroom tiles and the burners on my stove, other times I really could give a rat's ass whether I have a pile of clean clothes in the living room right in the path of traffic.

But that's the thing - when my apartment's messy, there's no traffic to be had.

I've had good friends beg to use the bathroom on occasion. It took months and lots of convincing on D-Money's part before I'd let her use my disastrous facilities after a long afternoon walk. A pregnant friend of mine asked to use the bathroom three weeks ago, and for a split second I thought about saying no (but it was okay because the messy alert level was at an elevated status, compared to the current severe warning).

So it goes without saying, I would never let a boy in to my shipwreck of a house. And that's what I mean about a messy apartment being the best, cheapest form of birth control. There's no way in hell Boyfriend X would see my clothes and mail and plates strewn about much like the scene of a tornado disaster.

Truth be told, my apartment has made it to the low level within the past three weeks. There was a time when every fork was in its place and the carpet had those lovely vacuum lines all going the same direction. I am inclined to clean up if there's an incentive, if I imagine an opportunity may present itself warranting cleanliness.

But most of the time I live like a hermit, anticipating few visitors in my domicile. So confession time if I can live like a slob and get away with it, I suppose I will.

I think my mother is at the root of all of this. She is Martha to the tenth degree. Critical about how the rest of the family opens kitchen cabinets ("Brass knobs only! Brass knobs only!"), whether our body oils from our hair or feet would get on the couches in the living room and very intense about our -not- being allowed to sit on the comforters in our rooms.

Can we say Joan Crawford?

My mom was a little crazy about the house cleaning, and there were many painful tears shed when I was a little girl about how unreasonable her expectations were.

So now that I've gotten older, I don't really care. My apartment always looks spotless when company comes over and I actually do pride myself on taking care of my home and my belongings.

I just don't care enough to keep the facade up when it doesn't matter. Because let's face it. I've got a life to live in this great big world, and I don't want to live it with a can of Comet attached to my hand.

5 comments:

Couldn't agree more. I absolutely LOATHE cleaning. The bitch is that once you're married, you kinda feel like you have to clean because you don't want your laid-back habits to impose on the hubbie...yet one more reason to stay single Kate!

That's it. I think we were separated at birth. Too much in common not to be. ;-)

One of the most horrible things that has happened to me as of late was when I was having one of those severe warning alerts on the cleanliness of my apartment. The lady next door had a clogged drain and the maintenace guy had to access my apartment because when he ran the snaky thing it broke through my pipe. I was mortified coming home knowing that people were in my apartment when it was so messy. Plus, to top things off I was running that morning and I even had my dirty clothes laying in the bathroom floor. Lovely I tell ya.

NB-C, I agree about your spouse and cleaning comment. I imagine I will have to tow the line when I get married someday... I've heard rumors my mom was something of a slob before she met my dad, but I obviously am unable to substantiate that first hand...

D- You are the least judgemental and most forgiving person I know. You are welcome to sleep on my couch any day, just throw the magazines and nail polish bottles on the floor. That's what I do...

GAC- We are living parallel lives. I've got some gross water stain on my ceiling (I think my neighbor's pipes are leaking) and I won't call the landlord b/c my place looks like a bomb went off.

Micah- you pretty much summed up what it was like to live in my house as a kid. It was pretty much a nightmare and I only hope it didn't rub off or make me too crazy.